Dunhuang Textiles in

London:
A History of the Collection
Helen Wang,* Helen Persson** and
Frances Wood***
*Curator of East Asian Money, British Museum
**Curator of Textiles, Asian Department, Victoria and Albert Museum
***Curator of the Chinese Collections, British Library

We can satisfactorily tackle only nite things in this world, and a study
of Chinese textile art would at present belong to the innite category if
taken up as a whole!1

Introduction
Sir Aurel Stein (18621943) visited Dunhuang in 1907 and
1914. Here, at Qianfodong, the Caves of the Thousand
Buddhas, the Chinese monk Wang Yuanlu revealed to him
the hidden library in Cave 17, which had been sealed at the
beginning of the eleventh century. The contents of that
library are well-known: in particular, the paper documents in
various languages and scripts, and the exquisite paintings on
silks.2 Less attention has been paid to the textiles, and it was
therefore with great pleasure that we welcomed Professor
Zhao Feng and his assistants Wang Le and Xu Zheng to work
on the collections of Dunhuang textiles in London in the
summer of 2006.
Our introduction aims to explain some of the background
to the textiles from Dunhuang that are now in London. First,
we offer a concise history of the three institutions in which
those textiles are now housed: the British Museum, the
British Library (which includes the India Office Library) and
the Victoria and Albert Museum. Second, we offer an outline
history of the Stein Collection. Stein made four Central
Asian Expeditions, visiting Dunhuang on the Second and
Third Expeditions.3 Although the Dunhuang textiles in
London are from the Second Expedition only, we have
prepared a concise history of the nds from the rst three
expeditions for the sake of clarity. Third, we offer a survey of
the work that has been done on the textiles in the three
institutions subsequent to their publication by Stein.
The British Museum, the British Library, the India Ofce
and the V&A
The British Museum
The British Museum has its origins in the vast collections of
Sir Hans Sloane (16601753). When Sloane died, a
parliamentary act (the British Museum Act of 1753) was
passed to purchase his private collection of 80,000 objects
and select a board of trustees who would be responsible for
preserving it and making it publicly accessible. Other
important collections were added to the Sloane collection,
including the library of the family of Sir Robert Bruce
Cotton. The Museum was open to the public, and a reading
room was provided in which scholars could consult the
library. For over 200 years the library of printed books and
manuscripts was a major department within the Museum
(with a Sub-Department of Oriental Manuscripts). In 1972,
the British Library Act was passed by Parliament, bringing
the Library into operation from July 1973, and the British
Museums library became part of the newly formed British
Library. Non-textual material remained in the British
Museum. The Museums collection of Asian antiquities was
rst housed in the Department of Antiquities, and as the
collection grew a Sub-Department of Oriental Antiquities
was established in 1921. There was also a Sub-Department of
Oriental Prints and Drawings (created in 1912) within the
Department of Prints and Drawings. In 1933 these two
sub-departments were brought together to form the
Department of Oriental Antiquities. With some

Sir Aurel Stein, Colleagues and Collections | 1

recongurations, this was renamed in 2003 as the

Department of Asia.
The British Library
The British Library was created in 1972 from several
institutions with the most signicant being the British
Museums printed books and manuscript departments. In
this way, the manuscript material (including the Chinese
scrolls, with their silk attachments) collected by Sir Aurel
Stein was transferred from the British Museum to the British
Library. In 1982, the India Office Library and Records were
also deposited with the British Library, bringing the Stein
collection of Tibetan and Khotanese documents in to join
the Chinese manuscripts from Dunhuang. The new
department was rst named the Oriental and India Office
Collections (OIOC). Thus, the Stein collection that is now in
the British Library has been moved several times: from the
Stein Collection (British Museum) to the Oriental and India
Office Collections (British Library). OIOC has had three
addresses since 1982: Store Street, London WC1 (19821990),
Orbit House, Blackfriars, London SE1 8NG (19911998), and
St Pancras, Euston Road, London NW1 2DB (1998 to
present day). OIOC was re-named Asia, Pacic and Africa
Collections (APAC) but is now known as Asian and African
Studies.
The India Office
The India Office was the successor of the East India
Company (founded in 1599). In 1858, after the Mutiny, the
East India Company was transferred to the Crown (Her
Majestys Government), under the name of The India Office.
The India Office functioned like the Foreign and Colonial
Office, handling Indian affairs in the UK for the Government
of India. After Indian independence in 1947 the India Office
was subsumed into the Foreign and Colonial Office. The
India Office Library together with its manuscript and archive
collections was incorporated into the British Library in 1982.
The Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum has its origins in the Great
Exhibition of 1851. Prots from the Exhibition were used to
found the Museum of Manufactures, and to purchase some
of its exhibits to form the basis of the new Museums
collections. Its founding principles were to make works of art
available to all, to educate working people and to inspire
British designers and manufacturers. The Museum moved to
its present site in 1857 and was renamed the South
Kensington Museum. Its collections (including textiles)
expanded rapidly, and new buildings were constructed as
semi-permanent exhibition halls, as necessary. In 1880, the
holdings of the India Museum were also formally transferred
to the South Kensington Museum. In 1899 Queen Victoria
laid the foundation stone of a new building designed to give
the Museum a grand faade and main entrance. To mark the
occasion, it was renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum, in
memory of the enthusiastic support Prince Albert had given
to its foundation.

2 | Wang, Persson and Wood

Outline history of the Stein Collection

Having studied Sanskrit, Old Persian, Indology, and
philology at the universities of Vienna, Leipzig, and
Tbingen (187984), and map-making as part of his military
service in Budapest, Aurel Stein had set out for a career in
India. His formal positions were as registrar of Punjab
University and principal of the Oriental College, Lahore
(188899), and principal of the Calcutta Madrasah (1899
1900). But his real interest lay in the archaeological
exploration of Central Asia, China, India, Iran, Iraq and
Jordan.4
Steins Central Asian Expeditions were funded by various
institutions for which he promised to collect archaeological
and textual artefacts. The intention was that the nds would
eventually be allocated proportionately to the funders. Steins
First Expedition (19001) was funded by the Government of
India and the Governments of Punjab and Bengal,5 and it
was agreed that the nds should be studied in London and
allocated to specic museums later. His visits to Dunhuang
occurred on his Second (19068) and Third Expeditions
(191316). The Second Expedition was funded 60% by the
Government of India and 40% by the British Museum, and
the nds were to be allocated accordingly. The Third
Expedition was funded entirely by the Government of India.
The intention was that the majority of nds from this
expedition should go to a new museum in New Delhi, and
that representative specimens and literary remains should
be presented to the British Museum.6
However, before any division of nds took place, every
attempt was made to keep them together so that they could
be studied, catalogued, photographed and published. This
often took many years, involved representatives from different
institutions, and some decisions had to be deferred owing to
the Second World War.7
Steins aim was to publish fairly quickly his own personal
narrative of the latest expedition. These were based on his
personal diaries and published as Sand-buried Ruins of Khotan
(1903) and Ruins of Desert Cathay (1912).8 Then, after extensive
study and cataloguing of the nds, he would publish a more
scholarly scientic report which also included work by
specialists in different disciplines. These are the well-known
titles: Ancient Khotan (1907), Serindia (1921) and Innermost Asia
(1928). For both types of publication, he needed a base for the
collection and for those managing and working on the
collection.9 The British Museum provided such facilities from
the time of Steins First Expedition. His assistant, Fred
Andrews, worked on the nds from all three Expeditions, in
London and in Kashmir, thereby providing a steady
continuity to Steins work.
It is often assumed that the nds from Steins three Central
Asian Expeditions came to London in their entirety, and that
they were worked on at the British Museum, as part of the
British Museum collection. As this is not an accurate
assumption, we have tried to outline the history of the
collection below. It is important to understand that although
the Stein Collection occupied part of the British Museum
premises in Bloomsbury, it was not part of the British
Museums collection until specic pieces had been formally
acquired by the Museum, usually after lengthy negotiation
with the India Office. Until the formal division of nds was

made, the Stein Collection was merely based at the British

Museum, and Stein allowed pieces to be removed for study
purposes to different people in different locations. His
assistants at the Stein Collection kept records of which pieces
were removed, so that they could collect them back in later.
Finds from the First Expedition
The nds from Steins First Expedition (19001) were sent to
London, where Stein worked on them in a room lent by the
British Museums Indian Antiquities section. The
Government of India then recommended that Dr Rudolf
Hoernle, together with the British Museum, should
determine the distribution of the nds.10
Finds from the Second Expedition
The nds from Steins Second Expedition (19068) were also
sent to London. They were initially stored at the Natural
History Museum (then part of the British Museum) in
January 1909,11 until facilities for the Stein Collection on the
British Museum site in Bloomsbury were ready. Stein was
disappointed with these facilities, and asked if the Collection
might remain at the Natural History Museum, or if there
might be alternative accommodation available at the Indian
Museum (under the aegis of the V&A).12 Although
investigations were made, his request was turned down,
chiey because of the major transformations that the South
Kensington museums were undergoing at that time.13
On 5 August 1909 the nds from the Second Expedition
were eventually delivered to the Stein Collection, British
Museum. The Stein Collection was kept separate from the
Museums permanent collections, and had its own lock and
key, as well as its own staff, of whom Fred Andrews and Miss
F.M.G. Lorimer were the most important. Although they
worked more or less independently on the Stein Collection,
they consulted with both Museum staff and with specialists
outside the Museum.
After the cataloguing work had been completed, in
preparation for the publication of Serindia (1921), came the
negotiations over the division of nds. Those pieces allocated
to the British Museum were formally transferred from the
Stein Collection to the British Museum collection in 1917 and
1919 (see below). The nds allocated to the Government of
India were removed from the British Museum on 12 February
1919, and sent to the India Office (London), prior to shipment
to India.
However, it appears that the nds were not shipped to
India immediately, and that they remained in the India Store
Depot in London. The publication of Fred Andrews article
Ancient Chinese gured silks (1920)14 and Steins Serindia and
The Thousand Buddhas15 (both 1921) must have prompted a
re-opening of the discussion over the nds, for in March 1923
they were back on the British Museum premises, and were
transferred in summer 1923 to facilities at the V&A, where
Fred Andrews was absorbed wholly by the examination,
division and re-packing of the antiquities forming the Indian
Governments share of the nds from the Second
Expedition.16 The nds were then repacked, and the majority
of crates were sent back to the India Store Depot in October
1923. It would seem that the textiles from the Second
Expedition were removed from the rest of the nds at this

stage. The V&A applied to the Government of India for a

loan of the textiles, and this was approved in December 1923.
Three cases, said to contain paintings on silk, were
temporarily stored in the bomb-proof store at the V&A, and
were removed to the British Museum facilities in September
1924, presumably for comparison with nds from the Third
Expedition, some of which were sent from Kashmir to
London in 1924.17
Finds from the Third Expedition
The nds from the Third Expedition (191316) were sent to
Srinagar, Kashmir. Fred Andrews and Miss Lorimer moved
to Srinagar, and worked on the Stein Collection in a specially
built annexe at the Andrews house there (the wall paintings
were housed separately at Lahore).18 In December 1919 the
Government of India agreed that the manuscripts should be
transferred to London for study purposes. The India Office,
London, was the appropriate location, but there were queries
over lack of working space there, and they were probably
transferred to the British Museum for examination and
cataloguing.19
In 1924, some other groups of objects, including textiles,
were also transferred from Kashmir to London for the
preparation of the plates for the volume Innermost Asia. Fred
Andrews returned to London to do this work, with the
assistance of Joan Joshua, who treated, mounted and restored
the textiles. Here, in facilities again provided by the British
Museum, he directed and supervised the proper treatment
and illustration of hundreds of specimens of ancient
textiles.20 In his Introduction to Innermost Asia, Stein wrote If
the many extremely delicate and fragile objects recovered
from the desert sands and ruined sites of the most arid parts
of Asia survive in future the effect of wholly different climatic
conditions, it will be largely due to the special treatment it
was possible to secure at the British Museum.21
The textiles were temporarily removed from the British
Museum facilities prior to publication, and in May 1925 Stein
wrote that the ancient textiles which are reproduced in my
Innermost Asia are still at Banbury [near Oxford] with the
blockmakers [Messrs Henry Stone and Son].22
In June 1932 the V&A received some textiles (from Astana
and Loulan) from the Stein Collection (then at the BM
facilities), on loan from the Government of India.23
It would seem that the rest of the textiles were sent to
India, and that in May 1933 a further group of textiles (from
Astana, Kharakhoto and Karakhoja) were brought from
India to London on formal loan from the Government of
India to the V&A.24
Who worked on the Dunhuang textiles from the
Second Expedition?
Fred Andrews and Miss F.M.G. Lorimer were the key people
working at the Stein Collection on the nds from the Second
Expedition. Andrews was employed to work on the Stein
Collection on a part-time basis, and had to manage this
alongside his main employment as Director of the Art
Department, Battersea Polytechnic (London) and
subsequently as Director of Industrial Art Education
(Kashmir). Miss Lorimer was employed on a full-time basis.
They were in regular contact with the staff working on the

Dunhuang Textiles in London | 3

Museums permanent collections, and with other specialists

outside of the Museum.
For the textiles, in addition to writing out the slips (slips
of paper on which they wrote detailed notes in preparation
for the catalogue entries in Serindia),25 other tasks included
conservation of the textiles, including nding suitable silk
fabric as backing, and nding appropriate dyes for the task.26
For these tasks, Andrews and Lorimer consulted with the
Museums staff: Miss Winter (repairs to textiles), Mr
Goodchild (working on silk), Mr Littlejohn (paintings
conservator).27 Specialists from outside the Museum were
also consulted: Professor Julius von Wiesner (18381916) of
Vienna, expert on Persian textiles and Central Asian paper,
and his student Dr T.F. Hanausek (18521918), who worked
on microscopical analysis of characteristic fabric specimens
from different sites, the results of which were included in the
Descriptive Lists in Serindia, and Prof. Summerville.28 Prof.
Josef Strzygowski (18621941) advised on the inuence of
textile products from Iran.29 Raphael Petrucci (18721917)
was also consulted over the selection of objects for illustration
in Serindia.30 Andrews, Lorimer and Stein sought out
publications that might be relevant to the textiles from
Dunhuang. These included Eugne Chartraires comparison
of a silk piece in the V&A with a piece in the Cathedral at
Sens (Burgundy, France) that had links with textiles from
Dunhuang;31 and Prof. Otto von Falkes study of the
inuence of designs from Khorasan or the Oxus region on
Persian gured silks.32
At that time, Fred Andrews main employment was at the
Battersea Polytechnic. When he found it difficult to combine
this with his preferred work on the Stein Collection, Stein
arranged for him to select materials from the Stein Collection
at the British Museum and take them to the Polytechnic to
work on them there.33 Although his chief task was to examine
the textiles and write up the slips, Stein also encouraged
Andrews to make drawings of the fabrics, insisting that he
was the ideal person to do this.34 From the correspondence
between Stein and Andrews, it is clear that he enjoyed this
work, discovering the intricate details, patterns and
techniques of the woven silks:
With regard to the drawings of textiles, these are progressing as
quickly as possible, and the most difficult are being done rst. I
know from experience how much time is consumed in nding
the scheme of patterns on damasks (which are all in one colour)
and gauzes.35
As an instance of what may turn up, one pattern now nearly
worked out measures about 2 feet square. This was quite
unsuspected, and is a white silk damask banner top painted
rather roughly with the usual seated B [Buddha]. The painting
hides so much of the woven pattern that I had overlooked it.
Another has an almost invisible woven pattern of a ne
decorative peacock about 10 to 12 high. Yesterday only I found
another white silk banner top with a large pattern but so
confused with the paint on it, that I have not been able to make
out the scheme. But of course I shall try. All these large patterns
are quite new to me (and I think I have a fairly wide
acquaintance with pattern) and I am sure should be carefully
done. 36

But he struggled to nd time away from his work at the

Polytechnic, and the demands of preparing the plates for

4 | Wang, Persson and Wood

Serindia, and eventually engaged a number of draughtsmen to

help him. We do not know their names, only that there was
one woman and one German among them.37 Whilst there is
no doubt that Stein understood the importance of detailed
examination of the textiles, Stein urged Andrews to work as
quickly as possible:
As regards the textile patterns kindly concentrate your efforts &
your drawings on the absolutely essential. Else the risk is great of
the whole remaining a torso. It is enough for you to have bravely
faced a new line of research. Serindia cannot exhaust this
enquiry which would need a monograph.38

While Stein carried out his Third Expedition in Central Asia

(July 1913February 1916), Andrews and Lorimer remained at
the Stein Collection at the British Museum. Stein continued
work on Serindia after his return from the Third Expedition.
Who worked on the textile nds from the Third
Expedition?
Fred Andrews and Miss Lorimer moved to Kashmir to work
on all the nds, including textiles, from the Third Expedition.
Andrews later returned to London, where he continued to
work on the textiles, with the assistance of Joan Joshua.
Innermost Asia was published in 1928. There are no specic
references to external help on the textiles, except from Lionel
Giles, of the British Museum, who worked on the inscriptions
on silk textiles from Astana.39
Why are the Dunhuang textiles in London in three
different institutions?
To some extent, the current location of the Dunhuang
textiles is associated with the history of the institutions: in
particular, the creation of the British Library and the
incorporation into the British Library of collections from the
British Museum and the India Office Library.
However, the current locations are also associated with
how the nds from Steins Expeditions were allocated.
Although the guiding principle was that the nds should be
allocated proportionately to the funder(s) of each Expedition,
there were other criteria. For example, Dunhuang paintings
from the Second Expedition were to be divided between
India and the British Museum, mainly on the basis of style,
although the system was complicated by arguments about
relative fragility and less than ideal conservation methods or
storage.40 The Government of India generally agreed that
the literary remains could stay in London, usually for
reasons of study or conservation. These were to be divided
on the basis of language and script: the Chinese textual
material went to the British Museum (now in the British
Library), and non-Chinese languages and scripts to the India
Office (subsequently incorporated into the British Library).
The Dunhuang textiles from the Second Expedition now
in the V&A are there as a result of the loan agreement
between the V&A and the Government of India (represented
by the Director-General of Archaeology) signed on 19
December 1923.41

Research on the Dunhuang textiles in the three

institutions
Dunhuang textiles in the British Museum
The Dunhuang textiles at the British Museum consist of
canopies, valances, banners and banner parts (headers and
streamers), covers and ties, patchwork, polychrome weaves
(Jin silk, Sogdian samite, Liao samite, brocade, and textiles in
two-colours), monochrome weaves (damask on plain weave,
twill damask, gauze, other), dyed textiles (clamp-resist dyed),
painted silk, and embroidery (split stitch, satin stitch,
couching). These were rst published in Serindia (1921).
Selected pieces have since been published by curators of the
Museums Department of Oriental Antiquities: Roderick
Whiteld (1983),42 Roderick Whiteld and Anne Farrer
(1990)43 and Shelagh Vainker (2004).44 The late Alf Crowley,
and more recently Mrs Qiu Jinxian, formerly of the
Shanghai Museum, have also worked on the conservation of
the silk paintings (including hundreds of fragments of silk
paintings) from Dunhuang in the British Museum collection.
In line with the Museums aim to create digital records
and images of its collections, several people have worked on
the digitisation of the collections of Sir Aurel Stein since
2000. They include Carol Michaelson (co-ordinator), Lilla
Russell-Smith (on 2-D objects), Cecilia Braghin (on 3-D
objects) [these projects were funded by the Andrew W.
Mellon Foundation], and Zhao Feng, Wang Le and Xu
Zheng (on textiles) [this work was funded by the British
Academy].45
Other researchers have also consulted the collection, but
on the whole, the notion of Dunhuang textiles in London is
more closely associated with the V&A collection (where the
Stein collection consists mostly of textiles) than with the
British Museum collection (where textiles are seen as part of
the Stein and Central Asian collections). We are delighted
that the British Museum, V&A and British Library
collections of Dunhuang textiles have been brought together
in this catalogue.
Dunhuang textiles in the Victoria and Albert Museum
At rst the V&A arranged its collections according to
material. In this way, all textiles, no matter their country of
origin, were housed in the Department of Textiles. Although
the India Museum collections were left intact until 1955,46 the
Far Eastern collections were incorporated into the V&A from
1908, and the textiles collected by Stein, on loan from the
Government of India, were thus incorporated into the V&As
Department of Textiles. However, this led to a very particular
approach to Asian materials; for example the Department of
Textiles had a strong interest in the techniques of textile
production.47 It was not until the creation of the Far Eastern
Section in 1970, and the consequent transfer of the East
Asian textiles together with other pieces collected by Stein,
that a more contextual approach to the material began.
At rst glance many of the textile fragments appear to be
scraps, cut-offs from larger pieces, or rejects, but closer
examination reveals that most of them once formed part of
votive objects such as banners and sutra wrappers. The Stein
collection at the V&A does not include any of the larger
banners and beautiful silk paintings such as may be found in

the British Museum and the National Museum of India in

New Delhi. It was these more famous pieces that attracted
the attention of researchers, and at times the material at the
V&A was left somewhat in the background. Nevertheless, the
V&A loan collection offers a fascinating insight into the scope
of fabrics being produced in, as well as imported into, China
before the early 11th century. It is also a marvellous resource
for the study of weaving. The woven textiles comprising the
Dunhuang textiles are almost exclusively silk and
demonstrate a range of plain weaves, satins and beautifully
subtle damasks, and vibrant polychrome pattern woven silks
such as gured gauzes, brocading and samites. Many of these
have been further decorated with embroidery, clamp-resist
dyeing and painting. The textiles also show an incredible
wealth of colour, from canary yellow through the clearest red
to deepest indigo.
The collection clearly proves the intensity of the silk trade
in northwestern China during the centuries before the cave
was sealed. Dunhuang lay on the main route along which
Chinese silk was traded into Central Asia and to the West,
and textiles from silk producing regions in the West, for
example textiles of Sogdian manufacture, were traded in the
East.
Canopies, altar valances and a number of complete and
fragmented banners are evidence of the importance of this
shrine site as one of Chinas great Buddhist pilgrimage
complexes. While some of the smaller fragments were
undoubtedly devotional, others may originally have had a
more secular use.48
Studies of the V&A Stein loan collection
The textiles from Dunhuang have been in and out of the
limelight, largely owing to the driving forces of particular
members of staff at the V&A. Over the decades, changing
attitudes to the interpretation of objects has also affected how
the collection is viewed. The Stein textiles have mainly been
studied from a technical viewpoint and they were often
overlooked as the focus in museums shifted to a more
discursive scholarship on the meanings of objects.
Albert Frank Kendrick (18721954), Keeper of the Textile
Department at the V&A from 1898, who zealously
campaigned for a loan of the Stein textiles in the 1920s and
1930s, was also the rst to draw attention to the Stein
collection in a publication. In his Catalogue of Early Medieval
Woven Fabrics (1925)49 he discussed the possible origin of the
roundel design with reference to some of Steins nds from
Dunhuang. He also mentioned Steins textile nds in the
book Chinese Art (1935).50
Some years later, John Lowry, Deputy Keeper of Indian
collection until 1982, outlined the changing style and design
of textiles of the Han and Tang dynasty in the CIBA Review
(1963),51 and selected a few Dunhuang fragments from the
V&A to illustrate this transformation. In the late 1960s Peter
Collingwood, a specialist on tablet-weaving, discovered the
magnicent resource that was the Stein loan collection,52 and
Mme Krishna Riboud of AEDTA [Association pour lEtude
et la Documentation des Textiles dAsie] also came to study
the Stein collection several times.53 However, both appear to
have paid more attention to materials from sites other than
Dunhuang.

Dunhuang Textiles in London | 5

Another prominent V&A textile specialist, Donald King,

Keeper of the Department of Textiles 197293, published
just one article on the Stein loan collection, in Bulletin du
CIETA [Le Centre International dEtude des Textiles
Anciens] (1968),54 in which he focussed on the weaving
technique of warp-faced compound weaves. However, he left
a le full of notes with technical analyses on many of the
textile fragments and may have intended to publish this more
extensive research. Unfortunately his notes are written in a
very abbreviated style, which is now partly undecipherable.
During the 1990s a number of papers and publications,
featuring fragments from the V&A Stein collection, were
written by V&A curators and external scholars. Most notable
from the V&A were Amanda Ward, then Senior Museum
Assistant in the Far Eastern Section, and Verity Wilson,
formerly Curator in the Far Eastern Section. Wilsons article
in Textile History (1995) provides an excellent introduction to
the collection with several suggestions for further study.
The eminent Chinese textile scholars Wang Xu and Wang
Yarong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences visited
the V&A several times in the late 1980s to study the Stein loan
collection. Anna Muthesius also studied the textiles, but from
a more Western point of view, and argues strongly for the
cross-cultural exchange evident in the fragments from the
Silk Road.55
The new T. T. Tsui Gallery (a display focussing on China)
opened in 1991; two banners and a canopy from Dunhuang
were included in the section of the gallery labelled Temple
and Worship. These were also discussed in the catalogue
accompanying the new gallery.56 A selection of the textiles
from the Stein loan collection was displayed in Gallery 98
between 1997 and 2011.
The 1990s saw a renewed interest in the textile fragments
and new research paths were introduced, largely owing to the
enthusiasm of Verity Wilson. This in turn led to the extensive
work on the Stein Mellon Textile Project. With funding from
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the textile fragments
were photographed and catalogued in 2003. The work was
done by curators Helen Persson and Sonia Solicari,
photographers Colin Maitland and conservator Thordis
Baldursdottir. The collection will be accessible on MIDA, a
section of ArtStor, as well as on the British Librarys
International Dunhuang Project website stein-collection and
the V&As own Collections Online website (http://www.vam.
ac.uk/page/s/stein-collection). The continued support of
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has enabled
conservation work and improved storage conditions for the
textile collection.
The project has already excited a degree of international
research interest and has attracted several renowned visitors.
These include Chhaya Bhattacharya-Haesner from the
Museum fr Indische Kunst, Berlin, and Yasuhiko Ogawa,
who studied a handful of the silk ties from Dunhuang in
2004, as well as non-sinologist visitors, such as the
Embroiderers Guild. Now that the emphasis has shifted from
the technical aspects of the textiles to embrace other
disciplines, it is clear that the Stein collection represents a
valuable resource for, say, economic, social and
ethnographical studies.

6 | Wang, Persson and Wood

Helen Persson has co-ordinated much of the work on the

Stein textiles in recent years, and was already preparing to
publish her own research on this collection. It was therefore
an excellent and timely opportunity to work together with
Zhao Feng, Wang Le and Xu Zheng on the Dunhuang
textiles in the V&A in the summer of 2006. The results are
published in Textiles from Dunhuang in UK Collections.
Dunhuang textiles in the British Library
The British Library is not the sort of institution where you
would expect to nd many Chinese textiles and those that
exist in the collections have been largely ignored for nearly a
century. Yet from the moment the paper scroll, rolled on a
wooden roller, became the standard book format in China,
textiles were included in the form of ties, joined to the
retaining rod and used to keep the scroll tidily in place when
not in use. Amongst the thousands of paper scrolls collected
by Sir Aurel Stein from the Qianfodong or Caves of the
Thousand Buddhas near Dunhuang, are some 150 textile ties
made from hemp or various types and colours of silk.
Most of the objects that he collected from Cave 17 which
are now in the British Library, are documents written, or in
rare cases, printed, on paper. Until very recently, their
signicance to scholars has lain solely in their contents and
their physical aspects such as format and materials have only
now become the focus of study.57
One of the rst to publish on the physical aspects of the
documents was Jean-Pierre Drge who pioneered work on
paper types and book formats, although he did not venture
into the area of textiles; neither did Li Zhizhong of the Rare
Book Section of the National Library who was also interested
in the history of book formats.58 The textile parts of a typical
scroll were accepted without investigation until Dr Yasuhiko
Ogawa made his rst visit to the British Library in 2004 with
the specic aim of examining the silk braids and ties
surviving on some of the Dunhuang scrolls.59 He started his
survey on the basis of the 35 scrolls with braids or ties still
attached that are listed in Lionel Giles catalogue of
Dunhuang manuscripts which was published in 1957.60
As Dr Ogawa noted, Giles list of scrolls with attached
textiles was not complete, furthermore, Giles catalogue only
lists some 7000 Chinese items out of a total which is almost
double that number. Though we have no record of Giles
working practice when he was assigned the job of cataloguing
the Chinese documents from Dunhuang in 1919, it appears
both from his catalogue and from the arrangement of the
material he left uncatalogued, that he was aware of a far
greater number of textile fragments in the entire corpus.
Giles catalogued the scrolls that were relatively complete,
often with titles or colophons that made identication
possible. He must have made a preliminary division between
these and the more difficult, fragmentary material that was
placed in large blue boxes and put aside for many decades.
These crumpled papers were known as the Stein debris until
the late 1980s when, with the nancial support of the British
Council and the Sino-British Fellowship Trust and the
expertise of the Chinese conservators, Du Weisheng, Zhou
Peiyuan, Dai Liqiang and Shao Zhuangwen, the debris was
smoothed and safely re-housed and elevated to the new name
of Stein fragments.61 That Giles had made some attempt to

sub-divide the debris was clear for there are some 112 textile
fragments, all grouped together between S.10853 and
S.11961. Though there are some tiny pieces of painted silk
(S.11428) which must have become detached from a larger
painting or banner and a few hempen scroll covers (S.11468),
the majority of these pieces are retaining rods which have
become detached from the rest of the scroll, but still have a
fragment of silken tie or braid neatly looped around them.
Amongst the India Office Stein materials, four previously
unlisted hemp banners (Add. Or. 52225) were discovered as
the India Office Library prepared to move from Blackfriars
into the new British Library building in 1998, thus adding to
the number of known textile pieces in the British Library.62
Professor Zhao Feng and his team have examined the full
range of these British Library textile fragments in detail and,
though their interest is in the textiles themselves, we hope that
their work may help to shed further light on the history of the
book format in China.
[This paper was rst published in Zhao Feng et al. (eds),
Dunhuang Textiles in UK Collections, Donghua University Press,
Shanghai, 2007. It is reproduced here with the kind
permission of Zhao Feng, with slight revisions.]

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16

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19
20
21
22

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24

Notes

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3
4

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9

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11

We would like to thank Joe Cribb, Anne Farrer, Beth McKillop,

Carol Michaelson, Jan Stuart, Susan Whiteld and Jonathan
Williams for their helpful suggestions and comments in the
preparation of this paper. All quotes from the Sir Aurel Stein
Collection housed in the Bodleian Library are reproduced with the
kind permission of the British Academy.
Letter from Stein to F.H. Andrews, 8 Dec 1912, Bodleian Library,
Stein MSS 40/173.
See, for example, http://idp.bl.uk [the website of the International
Dunhuang Project at the British Library] and http://www.
thebritishmuseum.net/thesilkroad [featuring specimens from the
collections of Sir Aurel Stein at the British Museum].
Stein was forced to abort his Fourth Expedition, and all nds were
left in China.
J. Mirsky, Sir Aurel Stein. Archaeological Explorer, University of Chicago
Press, 1977; and A. Walker, Aurel Stein. Pioneer of the Silk Road, John
Murray, London, 1995.
M.A. Stein, Ancient Khotan: Detailed Report of Archaeological
Explorations in Chinese Turkestan, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1907, p. vi.
[reprinted by Hacker Art Books, New York, 1975]
M.A. Stein, Innermost Asia: Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia,
Kansu and Eastern Iran, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1928, p. xvi (reprinted
by Cosmo Publications, New Delhi, 1981).
See for example, F. Wood, Two thousand years at Dunhuang, in S.
Whiteld and F. Wood (eds), Dunhuang and Turfan: Contents and
Conservation of Ancient Documents from Central Asia (British Library Series
in Conservation Science 1), London, 1996, pp. 16; also F. Wood,
Aurel Stein, the British Museum and the India Office, in S.
Whiteld and U. Sims-Williams (eds), The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War,
Faith, British Library, London, 2004, pp. 9195; and H. Wang, Sir
Aurel Stein in The Times, Saffron Books, London, 2002.
Stein did not publish a personal narrative of the Third Expedition.
For lists of the correspondence, see Diamond and Rogers paper in
this volume; J. Falconer et al., Catalogue of the Collections of Sir Aurel
Stein in the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, LHAS/British
Museum, Budapest, 2002; and H. Wang (ed.), Sir Aurel Stein in The
Times, Saffron Books, London, 2002.
British Museum Central Archives, Stein Papers, CE32/23/5.
British Museum Central Archives, Stein Papers, CE32/231. The
Natural History Museum was founded in South Kensington in 1881,
and became the new location for the British Museums natural
history collections. The Natural History Museum remained under

25
26

27

28

29
30
31
32
33
34

35
36
37

38
39
40

the Board of the British Museum Trustees until the British Museum
Act (1963), when the Natural History Museum became fully
independent.
British Museum Central Archives, Stein Papers, CE32/23/23/2.
M. Conforti, The idealist enterprise and the applied arts, in M.
Baker and B. Richardson (eds), A Grand Design: the Art of the Victoria and
Albert Museum, V&A Publications, London, 1997, pp. 2348, esp. p.
45.
F.H. Andrews, Ancient Chinese gured silks excavated by Sir Aurel
Stein at various sites of Central Asia, Burlington Magazine for
Connoisseurs (in 3 parts), vol. 37, no. 208 (July) 1920), pp. 210; vol. 37,
no. 209 (Aug 1920), pp. 7177; and vol. 37, no. 210 (Sept 1920), pp.
14752.
M.A. Stein, Ancient Buddhist Paintings from the Caves of the Thousand
Buddhas on the Westernmost Border of China, B. Quaritch, London, 1921.
V&A Stein Archives, letter from Stein to C.H. Smith, 19 February
1923; also a note from A.F. Kendrick, dated 14 March 1923. Kendrick
was Keeper of Textiles at the V&A, 18971924.
V&A Stein Archives, Memo, 3 October 1923.
A. Walker, op. cit., p. 234.
Innermost Asia, p. xv.
Innermost Asia, p. xvxvi,
Innermost Asia, p. xvi.
V&A Stein Archives, letter from Stein to A.J.B. Wace, 18 May 1925.
Wace was Deputy Keeper of Textiles, V&A, 192434. See also
Innermost Asia, p. xix.
V&A Stein Archives, receipt of loan of textiles from the
Government of India, 14 June 1932.
V&A Stein Archives, letter from the Office of the High
Commissioner for India to the Board of Education, 20 April 1933;
also signed loan agreement, 4 May 1933.
For examples of slips written by Miss Lorimer and/or an
unidentied person on textiles see Bodleian Stein MSS 62/154160.
There are samples of fabrics in the Stein archive at the Bodleian
[Stein MSS 39/17 and 39/23], and comments on them; see letter
from Stein to Lorimer, 16 March 1910 [Bodleian Stein MSS 38/18].
For Miss Winter see letter from Stein to Lorimer 16 March 1910
[Bodleian Stein MSS 38/18]; for Mr Goodchild see letter from Stein
to Andrews, 13 April 1910 [Bodleian Stein MSS 39/26]; for Mr
Littlejohn see letter from Andrews to Stein, 28 Feb 1913 [Bodleian
Stein MSS 41/56].
For references to Prof von Wiesner and Hanausek see Ancient Khotan,
pp. xiii, 135, 307, 571, 426; also M.A. Stein, Serindia: Detailed Report of
Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost China, Clarendon Press,
Oxford, 1921, pp. xix, 673 (reprinted by Motilal Banarsidass, New
Delhi, 1980). For Prof. Summerville see letter from Stein to Andrews
17 March 1911 [Bodleian Stein MSS 39/44].
Serindia, p. 902, n.2.
Letter from Andrews to Stein, 21 June 1912 [Bodleian Stein MSS
40/39].
Serindia, p. 908; also E. Chartraire, Les tissus anciens de la
cathedrale de Sens, Revue de lArt Chrtien, vol. 61 (1911).
Serindia, p. 908; also Otto von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei,
Verlag Ernst Wasmuth, Berlin, 1913.
Letter from Stein to Andrews, 26 Sept 1909 [Bodleian Stein MSS
37/196].
Letter from Stein to Andrews, 9 April 1910 [Bodleian Stein MSS 39];
letter from Stein to Andrews 15 Dec 1911 [Bodleian Stein MSS
39/64]; letter from Stein to Andrews, 18 Nov 1912 [Bodleian Stein
MSS 40/148].
Letter from Andrews to Stein, 31 Oct 1912 [Bodleian Stein MSS
40/132].
Letter from Andrews to Stein, 31 Oct 1912 [Bodleian Stein MSS
40/132]
Letter from Stein to Andrews, 25 Nov 1912 [Bodleian Stein MSS
40/165] and from Andrews to Stein, 6 Dec 1912 [Bodleian Stein
MSS 40/172].
Letter from Stein to Andrews, 17 Feb 1913 [Bodleian Stein MSS
41/24].
Innermost Asia, p. xvii and Appendix I Chinese Inscriptions and
Records.
There are references to the fragility of some silks, for example in a
letter from Stein to Andrews, 13 October 1910; Andrews to Stein, 6th

Dunhuang Textiles in London | 7

41
42

43
44
45
46
47

48

49
50

51
52
53

June, 1913; and in a letter from Stein to F.C. Drake, Secretary of the
Revenue Department in the India Office, 12th July, 1913. These
letters are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
See V&A Archives, MA/1/S3242.
R. Whiteld, The Art of Central Asia. The Stein Collection in the British
Museum, vol. 3. Textiles, Sculpture and Other Arts, Kodansha
International, Tokyo, in co-operation with the Trustees of the British
Museum, 1983.
R. Whiteld and A. Farrer, Caves of the Thousand Buddhas: Chinese Art
from the Silk Route, British Museum Publications Ltd, London, 1990.
S. Vainker, Chinese Silk: a Cultural History, British Museum Press,
London, 2004.
For example, see http://www.thebritishmuseum.net/thesilkroad.
See R. Skelton, The Indian Collections, 17981978, Burlington
Magazine, vol. 120, no. 902 (May 1978), pp. 297304.
C. Saumarez Smith, National consciousness, national heritage and
the idea of Englishness, in Baker and Richardson (eds), A Grand
Design, op. cit., , pp. 1997, pp. 27583, p. 279.
V. Wilson, Early textiles from Central Asia: approaches to study
with reference to the Stein Loan Collection in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, London,Textile History, vol. 26, no. 1 (1995),
pp.2352, esp.p. 38.
A.F. Kendrick, Catalogue of Early Medieval Woven Fabrics, V&A
Museum, London, 1925.
See R.E. Fry et al., Chinese Art. An Introductory Handbook to Painting,
Ceramics, Textiles, Bronzes and Minor Arts, B.T. Batsford Ltd., London,
1935. Kendrick wrote the chapter on textiles.
J. Lowry, Early Chinese silks, CIBA Review (CIBA Lrd, Basle),
1963/2, pp. 230.
See P. Collingwood, The Techniques of Tablet Weaving, Faber and Faber,
London, 1982.
For her work on the textiles collected by Paul Pelliot in Dunhuang,
see K. Riboud and G. Vial, Tissus de Touen-houang conservs au Muse
Guimet et la Bibliothque Nationale, Mission Paul Pelliot 13, Paris, 1970.
See also K. Riboud, Some remarks on strikingly similar Han gured
silks found in recent years in diverse sites, Archives of Asian Art, no. 26
(197273), pp. 1225; and Further indication of changing techniques
in gured silks of the Post-Han period, Bulletin du CIETA, vol. 41, no.
2 (1975), pp. 1340.

8 | Wang, Persson and Wood

54 D. King, Some notes on warp-faced compound weaves, Bulletin du

CIETA 28 (1968), pp. 919.
55 See A. Muthesius, Byzantine inuences along the Silk Route: Central
Asian silks transformed, in Contact, Crossover, Continuity, 1994 Proceedings
of the Textile Society of America, published in 1997.
56 See R. Kerr (ed.), Chinese Art and Design: the T.T. Tsui Gallery of Chinese
Art, V&A Publications, London, 1991.
57 Though the vast majority of the documents were Chinese Buddhist
texts, the non-canonical and secular documents have been studied
with the greatest interest. See Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan Lishi
yanjiusuo, Zhongguo Dunhuang Tulufan xiehui Duhuang gu
wenxian bianji weiyuanhui, Ying cang Dunhuang wenxian [Documents
from Dunhuang in UK Collections], Sichuan renmin chubanshe,
Chengdu, 199095, for the range of non-canonical materials and for
materials in other languages also found in Cave 17, the website of the
International Dunhuang Project: http://idp.bl.uk .
58 See, for example, J.-P. Drge, Les cahiers des manuscrits de
Touen-houang, in M. Soymi (ed.) Contributions aux etudes sur
Touen-houang, Librairie Droz, Geneva and Paris, 1979, pp. 1728; and
Papillons et tourbillons in J.-P. Drge (ed.), De Dunhuang au Japon:
tudes chinoises et bouddhiques offertes Michel Soymi, Librairie Droz,
Geneva, 1996, pp. 16378.
59 Ogawa Yasuhiko, A study of the silk braids on Stein Chinese scrolls,
IDP News 27 (Spring 2006), pp. 67, http://idp.bl.uk/pages/
archives_newsletter.a4d.
60 L. Giles, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Chinese Manuscripts from Tunhuang
in the British Museum, British Museum, London, 1957.
61 See P. Lawson and M. Barnard, The preservation of pre-10th
century graphic material, in S. Whiteld and F. Wood (eds),
Dunhuang and Turfan: Contexts and Conservation of Ancient Documents from
Central Asia (British Library Studies in Conservation Science 1),
London, 1996, pp. 715.
62 It is probable that these had been selected by Laurence Binyon at
some time during the First World War for despatch to India but
never sent; see F. Wood, Two thousand years at Dunhuang, in
Whiteld and Wood (eds), Dunhuang and Turfan, op. cit., p. 4; and R.
Whiteld, Four unpublished paintings from Dunhuang in the
Oriental Collections of the British Library, British Library Journal,
vol. 24, no. 1 (Spring 1998), pp. 9097.